


To Die, To Sleep

by the_one_a_m_writer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU: wayyyy later in the timeline, Possibly Pre-Slash, and dead, but he's immortal, immortality AND death in the same character, it says major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 18:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16665829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_one_a_m_writer/pseuds/the_one_a_m_writer
Summary: Tony Stark is... dead.And then he's told he's immortal.





	To Die, To Sleep

Tony’s reaction to being told he was immortal was “Shit, really?”

 

He probably would have... fact checked, or something. Asked a few more questions. But his chest was whole and without arc reactor. His hands were unblemished. (He missed some of those scars.) And, well... 

He remembered death. 

Remembered being blasted into the air. The armor finally gave up on him. In his last moments, he saw Riri screaming, drenching the alien who’d cast the killing blow with power one hundred times that of old Arc Mini Version 2.

Peter, who fought in a confusing haze of tech and borderline legal chemical warfare, dangerously knocked out sixty-three (as he fell, Tony counted) aliens with one blow, and then promptly missed his handhold. Harley’s drone snatched Peter out of the air in front of the 58th story window. 

The other Avengers, most of whom were the sons and daughters and protegees of the original Avengers, had finally finished the fight, but had ended up banged up and and bleeding. Harley, Peter, and Riri, the trinity who owned Stark Industries-- now. As of Tony’s death, now-- collected everyone and checked tech. MJ, Peter’s wife and the new Pepper, took status reports. 

The arc reactor had shattered into Tony’s heart. There was no coming back from that one. It was almost poetic. 

 

As Tony was standing over his dead body, there was a pale man who came to him, arms outstretched. Tony had never seen him before, but the darkness and authority-- well-- something about him screamed “death.” 

But there was no fear. 

He wrapped his arms around Tony, pinning Tony’s arms to his sides. He cupped his palms against Tony’s shoulders, like Tony  _ (used to) _ do to the people he was carrying in the armor. 

Tony expected to be carried off right away, but all of the sudden, a dark light-- purple light-- almost black light exuded itself from the man and burrowed its way under Tony’s skin. Tony was surprised, and so was the man, it seemed.

So the man began to speak. 

“It looks like you’re next up,” he said. “You’re Death.”

“I’m-- what?”

“The next reaper. Take souls. Send them to the afterlife.” 

“So I do my shift, take the souls, then someone gets my--” Tony gestures to the magic that’s working its way into his skin, slowly, like it needs some time-- “ink, and I go... onward?”

The man puts his hand on Tony’s heart and listens, or something. Finally he says, “No.”

“No?”

“The universe has been waiting for you, Tony Stark. You are the Final Death.” 

“You’re fucking with me. Why now?”

“Your soul needed time to mature,” says the man, cocking his head like he’s getting input from somewhere else.

“Sure. Soul. Mature. Got it.” 

“Good luck,” the man says. 

“How do I take souls?” Tony asks, but all of the sudden he feels the last of the darkness seeping into his skin and the other man is blank in his arms. 

That’s the only way Tony can describe it. 

Like a paper man. This soul-- soul. These new instincts are odd. This soul is worn out. Tony picks it up. 

And lifts. 

And the soul is gone. Into the afterlife. Tony  _ knows. _ Somehow, in an instant, he transcended this mortal plane and-- into the afterlife. 

 

Tony’s consciousness shatters. 

Apparently being Death means being Death for  _ everyone. _ The little drones of his consciousness, like the fifty armors he used to control all at once, pick up souls and fling them into the afterlife. Some are hardy and can be thrown. Others have to be cradled. 

There are one billion trillion consciousnesses that belong to Tony Stark, Death, and they fill every corner of the universe. 

Tony always found it easy to control every suit of armor at once and also hold a conversation. He wonders if he was primed for this.

 

Tony Stark Prime, the one that has the most accurate-to-life physical form, watches the Avengers after the battle. Oddly enough, Captain America is not crouched with the others next to his body. 

He’s looking around. 

Prime walks over. Taps the Captain’s shoulder. 

“I knew it,” Steve says. 

“You can see me?” Tony says in surprise. He’s already learned, because he learns fast, that only the dead ever see him, and the dead are not good conversationalists. They are mostly in shock. They are shells of self. Blanks.

“Yeah, I can,” Steve said, and he splits in two. 

His body walks over to Tony’s body. 

The blue ghostlike form steps closer to Prime. 

“I’m Death,” Tony says. 

“I know,” Steve says. “I used to know the other Death.”

“Who are you?”

“Steve Rogers,” the ghost says, “Rebirth.”

Tony’s mouth drops open. 

“So. Reincarnation.”

“Yeah. I take the souls, put them in bodies. But everyone who thinks they remember their past life is wrong.”

“You haven’t died,” Tony says, numbly. “I died, and then I became Death.”

“Think,” Steve says with a grin. “Come on. I’m Rebirth.”

“Project  _ FUCKING  _ Rebirth!” Tony says. “You became Rebirth then?”

“Yes. Whenever someone gets reborn, which happens a lot, you know-- religious ceremony, medical miracle, super soldier serum-- Rebirth just pushes them back into their body. Rebirth came along to me, and pushed me back in, and then told me I was the Final Rebirth.”

“You’re  _ really _ immortal. I’m just fake immortal. Look but don’t touch.”

“You get to talk to me,” Steve says. 

“Ghost-you.” 

Ghost started to solidify, then, taking on the old colors of Steve in a tee shirt and jeans. Other Steve, the one who was currently wearing the Captain America suit, took on a blue tinge but not noticeably so. 

Tony closed his eyes for a second, just a second, and  _ felt _ his dark fractured consciousness taking souls away. For a moment, he concentrated harder on one of them that was taking a particularly frail soul, and lifting it carefully up, and he-- felt-- Steve’s hands taking it away. 

“Project Rebirth. My nickname, Merchant of Death. They aren’t coincidences, are they?”

“No,” Steve said. Tony walked across the rubble of their fight and picked up a woman who’d been trapped by an alien. He tried to hand her to Steve. 

“C’mon, Tony, go to the Other Place first.”

So up they went, and  _ then  _ Tony handed her to Steve, and they came back down and walked to a hospital. There was a mother giving birth, there. Steve put the soul in the baby and Tony and Steve watched unnoticed as the baby was born and was given to the mother. 

“I can see their souls!” Tony said. 

They were full of colors, the baby and the mother both, unlike the blanks Tony handled. 

“Our names aren’t coincidences,” Steve said, continuing their conversation earlier. 

Tony murmured some form of assent. 

“The other Rebirth told me Rebirth and Death always go hand in hand, but it’s up for them to decide how.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking it’s time for Captain America to grow old. Die in battle. Then Rebirth can spend the rest of Time carrying souls with Death.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Tony said. 

 

And the sun rose on a billion trillion planets scattered around the solar system. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If anyone's ever read the Book Thief, I drew inspiration from the narrator Death.  
> Hope you liked it! Obviously, it's intentionally open-ended so you can imagine anything coming next.


End file.
